


Thank You but Your Princess is in Another Castle

by dimtraces



Series: Runaways 'verse [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Non-Consensual Magical Body Modification, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 02:55:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9300956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: On the six-hundred-and-forty-fourth day, Savage Opress steals a Sith apprentice.(Or: The one in which Talzin sends Savage out thirteen standard years earlier, and he meanders around the galaxy in a very slow spaceship.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Non-consensual body upgrading, fratricide, murder, bloody imagery, vaguely implied past abuse.

The first day, Savage forgets before it is even over.

There’s a bed in a cordoned-off section of his shuttle’s cargo hold, and he crashes face-down onto it, heavy and almost gone with magic. His bones still throb and crackle. He fears they might wear through his skin, as if it wasn’t weathered and thick but soft as a palm-bird's wings, almost melting on the tongue. _Feral used to like… No. Do not think of him_ , something hooked deep in his skull orders. _He deserved everything he got._

Savage shakes.

_(Seconds or hours before, he stumbled into the cockpit of the old Sheathipede-class transport shuttle the Sisters provided him with, and turned on the autopilot, drained of everything but this last act of obedience. In his blindness, he programmed it wrongly: The ship will take him to Glee Anselm, not Mustafar, but it is still a few days until he will rage over this mistake.)_

Something drips from his front horn onto the musty bedsheet. Blood.

He has either torn a hole in the ship’s doorway, or it in him.

_(“He is ready, Sisters,” the Mother said, and the ground fell away from his feet. She stroked his arm, almost steadying. “He will find my lost son.”)_

He dreams that there is blood crusted under his fingernails. It grows, clots pulsing and twisting like a living thing— _like the way his brother’s neck doesn’t, now_ —it grows until the tissue ruptures, and the nails burst off the stumps of his fingers. It burns. It flows and it rises, and when Savage tastes it, he knows it is his. _There is no blood,_ he thinks. _There was no fight. He was weak._

When he wakes two days later, his fingernails are chewed down to the bed.

He doesn't know why.

There was never any blood.

+

On the twenty-ninth day, the Sheathipede’s hyperdrive dies. Savage is in the orbit of the ice-world of Elbara Nine when it happens, and he's just had to report to Mother Talzin that he failed, for the second time, to reach his brother. He is too proud to ask for help now.

Two days he drifts through space, attempting to make the repairs himself and failing, and then a grouchy duros hails him from her beat-up shuttle. She offers her services as a mechanic at an extortionary rate; Savage threatens her and takes her ship. But violence doesn't propel him closer to his brother: Her spaceship, it turns out, is not hyperspace-capable at all.

After the aborted getaway, he slinks back to her. She tows the shuttle back onto the frozen surface, and for the next four months, Savage trades muscle for parts and food and company.

The engine is never as fast as it used to be, afterwards.

+

_(Two months into their new life, Savage will finally dare to unshackle his brother. He’ll consider it a hasty decision, afterwards: Immediately, Maul will pin Savage's terrified body against the wall with the mental power Sisters command. For a second, he’ll crush his windpipe._

_He’ll ignore Savage’s pleas and saunter into the cockpit._

_One look at the read-outs, and he'll come back, and hiss at Savage in mortal offense._

_Maul will commandeer the ship. He'll set it down on a deserted moon, and spend a week in the guts of the Sheathipede. After a while, he’ll start muttering to himself, about screwdrivers_ _and wasting technology on incapable apprentices, and he’ll get absolutely covered in engine grease._

_Savage will laugh, quietly and startled, hiding it behind his hands. He will leave food on the steps. From a safe distance, he'll watch the food disappear, and the walls of the ship grow bright and gleaming, and then he'll sneak back into the ship’s belly for fear his brother will speed off alone, so fast that Savage will never have a chance to catch up again.)_

+

Savage runs through Cloud City. There’s only one thing in his mind: _The amulet glows. He’s landed, and the amulet still glows._ On the way to the Pair o’ Dice casino from Mother Talzin’s crystal, he crashes into a hooded black-robed traveller. There’s something long and hard hidden at the man’s hip, he notices when he frantically picks himself up again, but there’s no time for wondering. Without a glance back, he speeds around the corner and runs and runs.

_His brother is_ here _._

The square in front of the casino is busy, and Savage is violently elbowing his way through the crowd towards a side door—no thoughts given to what his brother will think of him, he only knows he needs to be there—when a shout makes him stop.

“Chuba! Yeah, you. Wouldn’t go in there just now!” It’s a twi’lek, smoking outside the door he’s aiming for. She’s clad in a heavy anorak over a baggy suit, and there are bottlenecks sticking out of every pocket. She pulls one out and drinks.

“Bar brawl?” Savage asks, to distract her. _Not even this drunk will keep him from his brother._

Unfortunately, she takes it as an invitation. “I wish, dude,” she says. “Could sneak in then and snatch the tip jar, no problem. ‘ve done it before. Don’t tell Rahrrrk, okay, big guy? He’s been wonderin’…” She sighs, and then she takes another swig from her bottle. _Ms SOCVUMO, bartender. #1 best Bespin drinks!!!_ , the nameplate on her shirt proclaims.

“No, someone’s been _murdered_. Head clean cut off, wasn’t pretty. No blood though, which is good ‘cause _I’m_ not scrubbing that shit off again. Real shame as well, big tipper. Mafia guy, I think. Black Sun? Not Syndicate because I kriffing _hate_ them, and he was decent. Real well travelled too, and respectful.” She stares unabashedly at the patterns on Savage’s face and continues, “We both know how rare _that_ is, don’t we. Was one of us, as well, not a human, so… Real shame.”

_A dead traveller? It can’t be_ him _. (If he is dead, he was weak!)_

_Savage has already lost one brother._

“And now the cops are in my bar and going through my cabinets. I’m lucky if they don’t find the vintage kibshae. Black holes, the lot of ‘em. Already kissed the accarrgm goodbye. Fuckin’ sleemo pigs, eh? May spice salt their every kriffing orifice…”

She keeps talking, but Savage has tuned her out. He fumbles for the amulet in his pocket. The glow is bright, and then it stutters and dims, but it doesn’t burn out.

Savage is too relieved to care that his brother’s flown off.

Again.

“… trying to run a business here, if I let every single…” Ms Socvumo trails off. “Sod it, who cares. Night’s already ruined, might as well have fun. Let’s turn this buzz into something worth forgetting. You in, stranger?”

_(The next morning, he’ll wince at the screech when he scores the one-hundred-and-ninety-eighth notch into the ship’s hull. He’s never noticed that sound before._

_Distantly, there is also the paranoia that last night he talked about more feelings than he is supposed to have.)_

+

In the rare moments when he isn’t resentful of his brother for keeping him from his home for an entire year—it doesn’t occur to him to wonder whether the Mother's crystal might be faulty—he is impressed at the breadth of the galaxy his brother has covered.

He entertains himself with guessing the business his brother does. Auditor at the IBC. Bodyguard. Delivery service, albeit in a much faster ship. His brother is rich, Savage decides. Happy, not in the way he and Feral _(weakling)_ are… _were,_ together in their hut or when the hunt had been good, or out playing ball in the morning sun. His brother is happy in the way Savage has seen on his travels. He’s lounging next to the shadow cast by a beach umbrella, pulling a face as he tries black mulch mold and doesn’t like it. His friends are ringing with laughter. No, better: He is in a jungle, sparring with a young nautolan and grinning in exhilaration.

His brother is successful, and strong, and when Savage catches up with him, he will welcome him. A traitorous thought bubbles up and is quickly burst: He will take Savage’s hand, and say, “Come with me,” and they will go.

They will be free.

It does not cross Savage’s mind that he could, in fact, walk away himself at any time. He is a social creature: If there is any chance at all of being with his brother, he will take it.

+

_(They’ll be on the run for months before Maul finally declares that he’ll teach Savage how to kill someone bare-handedly._

_“I already know how to fight,” Savage will protest._

_Maul will smirk at him. He’ll kick Savage in the head, and use Savage’s disorientation to pull his legs out from under him with dizzying precision. Then he’ll sit on his brother for half an hour, pressing his elbows in Savage’s solar plexus and enjoying the pleas for mercy. “I’m a Sith,” is all he’ll say when Savage complains how unfair it is, and that it didn’t show him how to do those moves one bit.)_

+

When Savage finally meets his brother in the flesh, he has many thoughts, and one that matters.

It is the six-hundred-and-forty-fourth day of his journey, and Savage doesn’t sneak onto Coruscant. He doesn’t need to. Savage needs to eat, and a year ago, when it had become obvious his mission wouldn’t soon end with him back on Dathomir, triumphant—when he had commed the Mother often enough on arrival to yet another strange planet and had to report that the amulet had grown dark, again… when he had grown resigned to his exile, that’s when he had established himself as a one-man hauling crew. It’s a competitive business, and the Sheathipede’s hyperdrive is too old and slow to take urgent missions, and the money is dire, but at least there’s always someone who needs something shipped to Dorvalla, no questions asked, or to Coruscant again and again, or to the Tharin sector or Mustafar or wherever else Mother Talzin’s crystal ball sends him this month.

Today, he has delivered two tons of frozen Mygeeto beetle eggs to a delicatessen in the business district.

Now, he uses the downtime before negotiating the inevitable next haul to fulfil his real purpose, scoping out the building the Mother has told him about. He wastes less than a millisecond glancing half-heartedly at the amulet—it glows brightly, not that Savage notices—and then he sets off to The Works.

The weapons manufacturing facility the Mother has sent him to is ancient, and with a quick blow to the door lock, he lets himself in.

He doesn’t spend much time casing out the rooms or paying attention, truthfully. He just walks in, and out: There are millions of them—he might even have to stay for another week, to complete the search—and what is he going to see but yet another empty room? (More than a year of searching, of always being too late, of dropping out of hyperspace and finding the amulet’s glow dim—an eternity of lonely exile will do that to you.)

He doesn’t think much, not in the way he believes thoughts should happen. Not in grand plans, in philosophies. It is the purview of the Sisters. Not in thoughts of home, of hugs and dinner _(“I know you don’t like it blue, Savage, but I’m cooking today and I don’t care!”)_ , not often anymore.

He thinks in pain, and in exclamations of _Brother_ and _Mercy_ and _I thought this doorway was higher_ , and just today and forever he also thinks, _He’s short._

_(This is the one that he’ll remember. He’ll treasure it, wrap it up in rags and bury it deep in the cavity next to his hearts, and later, when someone will ask Savage, “How did you meet?”, it’ll be this thought that claws its way to the surface again._

_And Savage will say, “He beat me half to death and I couldn’t retaliate because he looked twelve,” and he’ll laugh.)_

It doesn’t matter that it isn’t the first thought.

It doesn’t matter that it isn’t the literal truth, that he actually fights back—that his first thought is _Help!_ when a cowled shadow drops onto him from a nook in the ceiling that Savage has overlooked.

Surprise at the weight on his back is quickly followed by various expressions of pain. He only sees skinny patterned forearms before there are dark finger pads millimeters from his eyes, and he has to force them shut. They grope around, seeking to tear off nostrils and quickly retreating from Savage’s snapping teeth. He tastes salt and copper. Though he isn’t blinded, with his eyes closed he might as well be, and it still hurts. His attacker forces their claws into weak spots Savage hadn’t even known he _had_.

The creature on his back is hissing, and suddenly Savage can’t breathe. _I don’t want to die. I don’t want to fail this mission_ , he thinks, and then: _I didn’t even notice when they slipped the garrotte over my head._

He can’t break it. He has no leverage. He can’t even reach the attacker, who’s still hanging onto his back. _His back, which is close to—_

He smashes his head against the wall. The attacker yowls, skull caught between the stone and the sharpness of Savage’s horns, and Savage does it again. The crunch is satisfying. Maybe he’ll impale an eye. Maybe he’ll pierce the skull. He will _not_ be stopped. _This is for you, brother,_ Savage thinks. _I will save you_.

After the third strike, the garrotte clatters to the floor.

The attacker follows.

Breathing heavily, Savage turns around and looks at them, down on the ground. They’re short. Clad in pools of black robe, face swallowed by a massive cowl, and even with Savage’s night vision, he can only barely guess that the creature isn’t ball-shaped, in spite of the way the cloth has spilled out around them. The robes smell acridly of sweat and ozone and something else, Savage notices when he bends down to ascertain whether his attacker is still alive. It’s not prudent, the creature could be playing dead, but still—he should know.

Savage will have to run, and fast, if they’re dead. He is _not_ to attract attention.

He will have to kill them if they aren’t.

Savage grabs the attacker with trembling hands, and roughly pulls them up. The robes billow, and their breathing grows louder: A whining sound. They don’t reach his chin.

_(The Mother’s hoarse voice, and unsteady feet. He looks down at Her—shouldn’t he look straight ahead? The ground has left him. A brother—a test of_ loyalty _. A prisoner. Nothing more. It is important. Good. This is the way it has always been. The way it is. This is his future._

_“Kill him,” the Mother says._

_The brother is no more.)_

Savage fumbles on his belt for the blessed rope the Mother gave him. His hands vibrate so much that he almost drops it. He doesn’t. Soon, he’s bound the cowled creature’s arms tightly to their body. He will have to leave the rope there. He isn’t meant to lose it— _the Mother clips it to his belt and says, “When you bring Maul to me, there might be certain… complications,” and Savage understands, and he doesn’t. Why would his brother fight? Doesn’t he want to come home?_

When he looks up to check whether the creature is secured, that’s when he notices the hood has slipped. The attacker’s face is patterned in red and black. _It couldn’t be_ —Savage should fetch the amulet, he should, and—all other thoughts are razed from his mind. None of them matter.

_This is my_ brother _._

_He’s short._

+

_(It will always be Savage’s truth:_ My brother is tiny, I couldn’t fight him _. Anything else would hurt too much.)_

+

He clears the cabin-bed of the pants and the ready-meal packs and the blankets that he’s been hoarding, and puts his still-unconscious brother down. Letting go is harder than carrying him for kilometers through Coruscant’s bustling industrial district. He didn’t even break a sweat, then.

_(In what feels like another lifetime, Feral had wandered off into the forest with some of his friends. He sprained his ankle running after a veeka-bird, and so his friends went and called for Savage. Feral was alive and happy on his shoulders when Savage carried him back to the village, and so very heavy. He nearly put his back out.)_

This new brother weighs nothing.

So instead of settling on the floor and waiting for Maul to wake up, or making any kind of plan for what he’ll do once that happens, Savage busies himself rooting through the meal containers he’s amassed. The rancor meat one that he packed back on Dathomir—the one that he’s been saving for special occasions—is off, already. Savage throws it into the trash without a second glance. Soon, he’ll have the real thing again.

He’s in the process of inspecting his brother to determine whether he’s more of a burra fish or a poultry person when he realizes the eyes are open.

“Brother,” he says.

Maul glares at him.

“You are the brother I’ve been searching for,” Savage repeats. “Brother, I have found you. I’ll bring you back home to Dathomir. Mother Talzin is waiting for you.”

It might be the ropes, Savage realizes belatedly. And the fight. It’s probably unreasonable to expect his brother to be happy when he’s tied up. He must take them off, the Mother’s cryptic warnings be damned.

He kneels down to untie them. He lifts his right hand.

Faster than Savage’s eyes can process, Maul throws his torso forward and bites the index finger off.

“No! Wait, brother,” Savage gasps, scrambling backwards and cradling the injured stump against his chest. _Why didn’t the Mother tell him what to say?_ His back hits the cabin wall. “Do you remember who you are, where you came from?”

Maul chews on the digit, and spews it at Savage’s feet. “I am apprentice to the most powerful being in the galaxy,” he hisses.

“Sorry,” Savage says.

_(He doesn’t mean it yet, not in that way. He’s just apologizing for derailing his brother’s clearly awesome life._

_It’ll take time for the suspicions to take root, but half a year later, Savage will stop sleeping through the night. He’ll set the computer to beep every hour, just loud enough to wake him and not Maul, and he’ll tip-toe to his brother’s blanket pile. There will be no screams. There are never any screams. Sometimes, though, there'll be eyes moving frantically in their sockets, and then Savage will whisper, “It’s a good thing we didn’t find your Master. Someone wouldn’t have walked away breathing from that fight,” and dump a cup of ice-cold water onto his brother’s head.)_

“Unhand me _now_ ,” Savage’s brother snarls.

“I’m sorry, brother. The Mother wants to talk to you,” Savage repeats. _Surely he’ll understand?_ _He is a nightbrother, it is bred in his bones. She calls, and they obey._

Maul doesn’t dignify him with a response. He just grins, baring his teeth. (They don’t look so good: If they were home, Savage would scold him for having been at the soft food too often, and only give him bones to crack and chew from now on.)

Savage returns a tentative smile.

Nothing happens at first, but after a minute of just sitting there, Maul starts glowering. Then, the rope he’s been hogtied with begins to emit a faint green light, and Savage remembers: His brother is strong in the force. This is Mother Talzin’s _force-suppressant_ blessed rope.

Maul will stay where he is, and he’ll have more time to convince him yet.

After a few minutes of basking in the company of his seething brother, the console starts beeping. It’s a new message from the Mother, who is surely expecting another report of Savage’s failures. He imagines surprising Her, conjures up Her proud face when he reports that he has found Maul, and then discards the thought. It’s never been him She was interested in. Once She sees Maul, She will never look at him again. He thinks he should feel wistful. He is relieved.

Savage keeps looking at his brother’s sullen face, and then he remembers the other one, and the feel of warm orange skin under his hands. The feel of the neck. _It happened once, it could happen again._ Savage remembers wide disbelieving eyes begging him, _“Savage, you know me. I am your kin. Do not do this. No! Brother! Brother, please!”_ He doesn’t feel angry anymore.

There is crusted blood under his fingernails that isn’t there.

He glances at the navcomputer for a second, and then he looks away and sets the coordinates blindly. He turns on the hyperdrive. Next, he puts his fist through the comm system. It dies with a shower of sparks and the beeps stop, and he knows he’s made the right decision.

_Savage has already lost one brother._

_This one, he’ll never give back._

+

_(Much later, they’ll run into Brother Viscus. Savage will stare down at him, at this man he used to be at eye-level with, Before._

_And he will realize: It’s not_ Maul's _height that's weird.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Of all the self-indulgent bullshit I have ever written... Well, this was moderately more productive than staring at the wall because of brainfog
> 
> A massive thank you to everyone who helped me out on tumblr when I got confused about how English tenses work, especially [BurningTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea) who betaed this fic, you're awesome :)
> 
> The fic title's from the song by the Mountain Goats & Kaki King, and they got it from a Super Mario game. Certain lines are taken from certain Clone Wars episodes.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
